**Halo Wars 2 — From the Deep: defend three approaches and stop the Scarab**

**Halo Wars 2 — From the Deep: defend three approaches and stop the Scarab** **Main campaign, mission 7. Mission spoilers.** From the Deep starts in the middle of a fight, and then asks you to build a proper defense while the next attacks are already on their way. The answer is not to move every unit to whichever alarm sounded last. Give each approach a force that can handle its usual attackers, then keep enough flexibility to reinforce a position that is struggling. **Survive the opening and get the economy working** Use Alice, the Cyclops and the Scorpion to finish the initial beach fight while starting additional resource production at the main base. Do not spend so long watching construction that you lose the units doing the fighting. Once the first attack is repelled, prepare the perimeter. Build the two beach turrets and upgrade them for anti-vehicle work. Those are optional objectives, but they also serve an obvious purpose: the main beach is where heavy ground pressure arrives. Capture the nearby Power Nodes and keep the economy growing. Work toward the technology needed to produce additional Scorpions, rather than relying forever on the one you started with. [Opening and development](https://t.co/End5pxg03T) **Give each route a job** - **Main beach:** anti-vehicle units, the beach turrets and tank support. - **Smaller beach approach:** anti-air coverage, with ground support for troops delivered there. - **Inland approach:** infantry defense, with enough support to stop the lighter vehicles mixed into the attacks. Keep the garrisons occupied and place Nightingales behind the fighting units. They are there to preserve the defense, not lead it. If a support aircraft drifts ahead and dies first, the rest of that position becomes more expensive to maintain. Assign the groups separately. If the inland force is doing its job, leave it there while you fix the beach. Moving everything to one attack can turn a manageable second wave into a clear road to your base. [Defense overview](https://t.co/AqFUUj4lAQ) **Alice, the skull and the bonus objectives** **Total Annihilation** requires finishing without a Spartan being downed; here that means keeping Alice on her feet. Do not treat the ability to revive her as permission to ignore the requirement. Pull her back when necessary and give her shield time to recover. The bonus objectives include hijacking a **Locust** and getting **twenty Scorpion kills**. When Locusts arrive, use Alice's hijack ability on a suitable target. Keep the Scorpions fighting and check their counter rather than assume that every destroyed enemy at the beach belongs to them. [Skull condition](https://t.co/ek4uRDyHP5), [mission objectives](https://t.co/bpNTPZoirG) There is one Phoenix Log, **A Warning**. Look near the stone arch along the eastern shore, in the water near the inland route. Send a suitable ground unit during a lull, not while its departure would leave a defense uncovered. [Log location](https://t.co/Hga6x2nFIX) **Improve the army while it fights** Use the quiet moments to repair, replace losses and upgrade. Raising the population cap is useful once your economy can actually fill it. A higher cap with an empty production queue does not strengthen the line. Keep some anti-air even after Scorpions become available. More tanks help against ground attacks, but they do not make the flying enemies disappear. Watch for siege units attacking from outside the comfortable range of a garrison or turret and send the appropriate mobile units to remove them. I would keep replacements going to a protected staging point near their intended position. If a frontline is falling, do not let the rally point continue feeding newly built units into it one at a time. Pull back enough to gather a force, then counterattack together. **Stop the Scarab before it reaches the base** After the later waves, the Scarab approaches from the main beach. Bring your available damage to that fight, use offensive support powers and concentrate on destroying it. It can take a route over the terrain toward the base, so do not assume that the road length gives you unlimited time. Keep Alice safe during the final push if you are still on the skull run. Losing her at the very end is still losing her. Let the tanks and other anti-vehicle fire do their work while you manage the danger to individual units. The mission ends when the Scarab is destroyed. Until then, remain alert to any surviving attackers elsewhere rather than abandon an active breach without looking. On Heroic or Legendary, the preparation pays off here: a supported army with surviving tanks is much more useful than a last-second pile of replacements built after the Scarab is already inside the perimeter.